User blog:Matt Hadick/Reflections
Believe it or not, it's been eight years since Microsoft kicked off the previous generation of video games by releasing the Xbox 360 and it's safe to say that we've come a very long way. The last generation provided gamers with a variety of exciting new franchises, from Bioshock to Assassin's Creed, as well as a slew of new ways to play, from Nintendo's popularization of motion controls to Microsoft's groundbreaking Kinect. We all have our fair share of memories related to this last generation, so we thought we'd take some time to reflect and relate them to you. We also asked admins from some of our most active communities to let us know what this last generation meant to them and their fandom. When it comes to Fallout fans, I’m somewhat of an oddity. I played the originals pretty soon after they came out (initially bribed with “it's got McGyver in it”) and as many know the “Classic Fallout” fan typically doesn’t think much of Fallout 3. As I emerged from the Vault for the first time, however, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the way Fallout was always meant to be. Immersed in the wastes, surrounded on all sides by a wrecked tribute to Disney’s Tomorrowland. The last generation of consoles allowed us almost photo-realistic worlds for the first time, allowing us us to truly feel a part of them. Whereas games had managed to go into the first person over the last couple of generations, this is the first time, for me at least, it almost looked real. While there are many valid criticisms of Fallout 3 and the later New Vegas, one thing it can’t be faulted for is actually putting you right there, where everything is happening, at a level that simply wasn’t possible before. I cant help but wonder, as I hear people recount their own stories of amazement as they emerged from the vault if this was the kind of experience Tim Cain and the original Fallout team were dreaming they could have give us at the time. With the last generation, I truly believe we finally saw what the old greats of gaming were dreaming of as they hammered away at the computer, trying to trick machines into showing just one more color, or one more sprite, or hurriedly trying to optimize and slim down their code so they could allow just one more character or level. I can’t help but wonder if we finally got console games the way they were always meant to be played. ...And it makes me wonder: where on earth do we go from here? ---- This past console generation is finally coming to close, at eight years of quality gaming time. It’s really difficult to remember all the details of the early days, as I experienced a nonstop rush of quality games. The first year of the Xbox 360 was defined by visiting a close friends house. He was lucky enough to pick the console up at launch. After the first year, the inevitable happened: I witnessed my first ‘must-have’ game that caved me into purchasing the 360 for myself: Rainbow Six: Vegas. The early joy of the Xbox 360 was defined for me by the online competitive multiplayer. For that one year, I was stuck on Rainbow Six Vegas,. The year after, Halo 3 was released. I still remember the day Halo 3 came out: I was sitting in detention while my friends were waiting in line to pick it up (I had thrown a pencil into a ceiling tile at school at the wrong time) The first-person shooters of the Xbox 360 hooked me: BioShock, F.E.A.R., Left 4 Dead, and The Orange Box were my favorites. After that I tapped into the 360’s limited JRPG pool, thoroughly enjoying Eternal Sonata and Tales of Vesperia when I got around to them. Western RPGs managed to completely steal my time away, as I sunk about 100 hours into both Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3. I would never own a PlayStation 3 or a Wii during this time, due to lack of funds since I was a measly high school student. However, I was able to experience plenty of amazing PS3 and Wii games once I got roommates in college. I remember 20 people crammed into a tiny dorm room to watch Metal Gear Solid 4, from start-to-finish, like a movie. And I vaguely remember the countless nights of playing our drinking game variation of Mario Kart Wii, dubbed “40dio Kart”. Halo Reach would be my mistress for way too long, as I would long nearly 400 hours into it’s multiplayer alone, reaching the rank of Hero. My senior year of college was defined by everyone in my six-person house starting a character in Dark Souls. I still remember the goosebumps I felt when I crossed the border into Mexico in Red Dead Redemption for the first time. Reflecting back on it all, this past console generation was really defined by sharing some incredible gaming moments with other people. Whether they were my best friends or the thousands of people I’d meet for 10 minutes during a Halo match. Even single-player games were transformed into group experiences for me. Friends would introduce me to their game collections, and willingly share whatever I was interested in. It led to more critical discussions about the games we played, and that was truly something I never experienced before. ---- As an admin of the Halo wiki and a “veteran” Halo fan I’ve watched the Halo franchise evolve over the years from its original release with Halo: Combat Evolved back in 2001 all the way up to, and probably beyond, Halo 5. Since that original release, Halo has transitioned from console to console getting better with each stage. While I still have reservations about 343i’s new take on the franchise, it cannot be argued that the work done by Bungie, Ensemble Studios, and now 343i have been nothing less than huge technical feats and visually captivating games. Despite being an Xbox exclusive, Halo is a title well known throughout the gaming world and has now become a household name. Although most people would argue the best bits of Halo were on the original Xbox with Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, I believe the real fun was with the Xbox 360 generation! Within the space of one console generation Halo saw the arrival of five new titles, multiple best-selling novels, and the long-time fan awaited feature length Halo film. Halo’s community flourished with big time multiplayer titles like Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4, in which “MLG”, “tea-bagging”, and “cappin’ bombs” would enter the average fan’s lexicon, but also saw ingenious diversions from the standard linear shooter genre Halo was famed for, with Halo Wars and Halo: ODST. And who can forget the infamous hand off from Halo’s beloved creators, Bungie, to Microsoft’s makeshift studio, 343 Industries? In fairness, 343i stepped into some pretty big shoes and it was wrong of the community to expect another Bungie classic with a dead story line and the loss of some of Halo’s best writers (That said, we don't want to get too entangled in the cobwebs of nostalgia, so we're also looking into the future, offering up our thoughts and feelings about the next generation, in a companion series called Horizons. Of course, we'd love to hear what you have to say about the recent video game generation -- feel free to chime in via the comments! Category:Blog posts